A Simpler Game

Standing on Principle

Posted:
8/24/2012

By Tom Cunneff, LINKS Magazine

SOME OF THE RULES OF GOLF MAY SEEM UNNECESSARY—EVEN UNFAIR—BUT THERE'S A DISTINCT REASON, LOGIC, AND SPIRIT BEHIND THEM.

There isn't a golfer out there who hasn’t at one time or another decried the Rules
that govern the game, loudly proclaiming them unfair because his ball ended up in
a divot in the fairway or was diverted by a spike mark on its way into the hole.

Though you might not believe it, the USGA and the R&A hear your cries and take
them into consideration when they contemplate amending the Rules. The two organizations
are not nearly as stodgy and intransigent as people think. Just this year they made
a couple of significant changes to the Rules, most notably the elimination of a
penalty if a ball moves after address (when it’s known or virtually known that the
player did not cause the ball to move). Another big change allows golfers to rake
a bunker prior to a stroke provided it is just to care for the course (i.e., dragging
a rake behind you as you walk to the ball) and not to improve the intended area
of his stance or swing.

"The Rules of Golf Committee of the USGA meets four times a year, and then there’s
a Joint Rules Committee that meets twice a year with the R&A," says manager
of Rules communications John Van der Borght. "We’re four years from the next Rules
changes, but we’re already discussing potential changes. Some will be adopted, some
won’t."

Rules of Golf Visionary Richard S. Tufts

What guides the committee—and what should guide all golfers—are the important tenets
outlined by former USGA president Richard S. Tufts in his 1960 monograph,
The Principles Behind the Rules of Golf: Play the course as you find
it, play your own ball, and do not touch it until you lift it from the hole.

"These basic principles fortunately are simple, logical, practical, and expressive,"
he wrote. "By their recognition and by their application to specific Rules, it is
possible to bring warmth and an understanding to the austerity and complexity of
the Rules."

Warmth is probably going a little too far but golfers might enjoy the game more
if they grasped the spirit behind the Rules. The first thing to realize is that
no other sport has such a varied playing field. For the most part, the only constants
are the number of holes and the size of the cup.

"It is difficult to imagine the tremendous variety of conditions, objects and circumstances
with which the Rules must cope in their worldwide application to the game of golf,"
wrote Tufts, who also took note of the different forms of play and number of players
(stroke play and match play in individual and partner formats). "Golf is a complex
game, and we must anticipate the Rules will reflect that."

Every course is different and not in the same condition, so there are many situations
that arise that seem unfair, like when a player hits a perfect drive down the middle
and the ball ends up in a sand-filled divot, as Payne Stewart did at the 1998 U.S.
Open at Olympic on the 12th hole during the final round. Where’s the harm in taking
a free drop?

"Jack Nicklaus has asked the same thing," says Van der Borght, who was a Rules official
on the Futures Tour for two years. "Sometimes it feels like the guy is getting a
tough break. When you see those fairways on tour from the blimp shots— they’re a
divot minefield in some areas. But say we both hit drives down the middle and I
catch a sand-filled divot and you’re in one without sand. I get relief and you don’t?
Are you going to be happy about that? Overcoming adversity is part of the game."

The first thing to realize is that no other sport has such a varied playing field.
For the most part the only constants are the number of holes and the size of the cup.

Roots and spike marks are also part of playing the course as you find it. A player
can always deem his ball unplayable if he thinks he’s going to hurt himself on a
root—something perhaps Rory McIlroy should have done during the first round of last
year’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club. As for spike marks, just tap them
down after your group has completed the hole and be glad you can repair ball marks.
Up until 1960, the Rules didn’t allow it, but given the damage an unrepaired ball
mark can do to a green, it made a lot of sense to change that one.

That same year the USGA also experimented with the stroke-and-distance penalty for
a lost or out-of-bounds ball, dropping the penalty stroke. Tufts was not happy with
this change as it violated another principle: The penalty should not be less than
the advantage the player might gain from the respective Rule violation.

"The loss of distance only is often an advantage and not a penalty," wrote Tufts.
"It is, for example, always better to play the next stroke from where the last one
was played than to play from where it
In the 2011 PGA McIlroy opted not to declare his ball unplayable and paid the price.
went, when the shanked ball goes into the
woods, the half-topped approach over the green into the deep rough, or the too strong
putt across the green into a bunker. One of the great features of golf is that one
stroke leads to the next, and when it becomes easier to recover from the adversity
by the use of the Rules book than a golf club, the game will have lost all virtue."

Of course, that doesn’t stop golfers from flooding the USGA’s inbox with a litany
of questions and comments. Under the principle of treating like situations alike,
another Rule that was changed this year was penalizing a player a stroke for moving
a ball in a hazard while searching for it when it is covered by loose impediments
such as leaves, just like outside the hazard. Within a week of the change, Van der
Borght remembers seeing an e-mail from a man saying, "I'm really glad you made the
Rule consistent between hazards and through the green, but you got it backwards:
It should be no penalty everywhere."

The USGA and Chevron have committed to using the game of golf to encourage students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines.
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Lexus

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